Three horses came down the Road
by GwenynGwanunig
Summary: Ellison Wimbley, a struggling singer in modern day London, finds herself thrown in time, back to 20s Birmingham. By chance she becomes a singer at the struggling pub Three Horses Came down The Road. When the now popular pub is taken over by the Peaky Blinders, Elle meets John Shelby. But friend's secrets and dangerous business might ruin everything and everyone Elle loves.
1. Chapter 1

**Song to listen to : Arthur James - Impossible**

Prologue:

There is the crowds' cheering. A rowdy noise from the gathered drunks and party gals. I breathe ande try to find my happy place as I usually do.

But the gaping absence of Raquel is loud and unnerving at my back. Yet, I continue breathing until I have myself convinced I'll be okay.

For a moment all is dark and silent and then the spots, with a whir of electricity working - blind my face.

I blink for an instant, my long hair braided to the back of my head. I look everything a singer should be looking like, and today is a special day.

The mayor of Birmingham is here, the room filled to the brim. But then I spot something that makes my face turn cold.

My eyes cross blue immediately and I swallow forcibly. The Shelby's are here, and they're all staring at me. Michael in unadultered anger, Arthur with a glare, Tommy's face even pulled into an angry frown. But I don't look at them, I look at him, his eyes.

Oh God, his eyes.

Performing has always been a way to calm myself ever since me, a modern singer from 2019 London, was thrown to time and found herself in 20s Birmingham.

But the thrill I feel when I get to sing has long since left to replace with cold fear.

He sits next to Ada but his face is angry, bitter. His face is red, his jaw jumping, clenched teeth as he grips onto the table tighly.

He looks at me with such rage, my John Shelby, such anger and such dissapointment I'm thrown back to our fight and his words.

_-" You're nothing. Nothing but stuck up bitch who spreads her leg for the first famous guy that comes by. Raquel is the same!"_

_-" Don't you dare insult Raquel! And don't insult me, you're the only bloody men I have ever slept with, you idiot!"_

_\- " What did you call me, you bloody fuckin' bitch?!"_

My heart thuds painfully in my chest and I feel like i can't breathe anymore. My own jaw jumps and I feel tears rising unbidding in my eyes.

I stand before the microphone, and then my brows draw together. I try to swallow but it won't stay down. Then a pathetic hiccup/gasp leaves my mouth, loud in the microphone standing before me.

My shoulders start shaking as loud and ugly sobs start to fall from my throat, loud and undignified in the gathered silence.

Tears roll down my face as my hand comes up to to stifle the sounds coming from my mouth. But it keeps coming and I'm crying and it continues and it continues. I step back on uneasy feet and shake my head, looking through tear blurred eyes over the crowd and then stepping back.

It's still silent as I step back before I look up once more. John is seated, nose flared, jaw clenched, eyes angry and suspiciously wet. He has broken the wood of his chair, splinters in his hand.

The crowd is still silent as I walk down the stage and behind the curtain that shields backstage from the gathered crowd, not taking note of the screaming owner.

\- " Get up there, now! And sing, you bitch!"

-" NO!" I scream and then push him and throw off my shoes and the tiara from my head before I push through the backdoor. The nights in Birmingham are cold and my stockings are already becoming filthy.

Yet I stop in the middle of the muddy ground and look up, breathing hard. Alive, I'm alive, I'm fine..

Then when do I feel as if I am ruined never to love again?

I take a moment, so full of emotions that I can't breathe. Then there is Harrison, old man Harrison, patting my back. -" Are you okay? You don't have to sing if.." I take a moment and shake my head.

I have to make this right. And I know just what to tell..Through a song...And hopefully it will tell everything I have to say to John.

My John Shelby.


	2. Chapter 2

If you would have told me several years ago my destiny would be changing so much as it did now, I would not believe you.

Would you have told me several years ago that I would fall through time, I probably would have laughed in your face until I had tears in my eyes.

You see, the human mind will always find a declaration for something that's not logical. And to today, I don't know why it was me who went back in time.

But what I do know, is that fate did bring me to where I needed to belong. To make the world a brighter place when needed and in a way to make myself brighter like a star, and save the wasted potential that was myself.

My name is Ellison and I am 25 years. I am a singer, and a while ago, I was sent into time, to a place I never would have thought of.

I was a struggling singer in London, having finished my studies, I tried my chance to get into the music industry, but the thing was, even if my voice and my music was good, so were many other, and I was but one in a dozen.

It was a thing of luck really.

I had grown up with my mother, a rich upper-class girl who made the mistake to fall for my father. Maybe it was the fact that they were so different that made them go together, but the thing is, there relationship did not last long.

They were together for a year when my mom got pregnant. I was born and for another two or three years they struggled, trying to hold on to the love that had burned out already long ago.

Eventually, mom went back to her upper-class world, and I, a little girl of 3, was left to live with my father. He was alone until I was 9 and then he fell in love with a woman named Anne.

She was kind, much like the mother I never had, since my own mom only came to visit me once in a while.

For 2 years they were together and we formed a happy family, but when I was 11, my father, who had already been much older than my mother when they met, fell sick.

His health had over the last months deteriorated, due to a malevolent cells in his stomach. He had been good up to that point, but as the months progressed, he seemed able to do less, what didn't really click well in my 11-year old mind.

His immunity has diminished after treatment for the illness in his stomach. Should anything else come on top of the cancer that had at the moment been slowed down, he would not survive, nor live long.

And then he got a bout of large pneumonia. He spent long in the hospital, but the doctors were clear. As they had said, the chance he would survive was small. Yet my dad did not want to spent his borrowed days on pain or in the hospital.

He came back home, and for a while he improved. We were hopeful, I was hopeful. Even tohugh we knew his time was borrowed.

A few months, as expected in away, he passed. The last months we had returned to being the family we had been before. Happy. I still hold on to that as such a happy time when I think of when he passed.

His last moments were good, he was happy. But with him gone, my world seemed a little darker and sadder.

It was a very sad day in the Williams household that day. I had it so hard to understand that my sweet dad, who had been my world, who had always encouraged my gift for song and music, was gone.

If that was not enough, another tragedy made it's way into my already grief-stricken life. Barely weeks after my father passed, grief still fresh, my mother came to pick me up.

I had always assumed I would be staying with Anne, who had raised me, but my mom now apparently remembered she had a daughter, and wanted me back.

Anne tried, she really did, but the judge did not want to grant her custody since she and my dad were not married.

And so, still, still mourning my father, I was to go with my mother. I never saw Anne after that again.

As the years passed, I mourned my dad and my grief lessened over him and the loss over the woman who had raised me.

It took me years to forgive my mother for that.

My real mom gave my everything, good schools, good housing, lessons to continue my music and song but she was never really there.

She had never been a warm woman, and so my surrogate family became the people working for my mother. The cook, the cleaners, the babysitters.

I look back to them with fondness even now.

When I was 16, she remarried and left me to my own devises in her big house. By then I had long since learned how to grow up and could do well on my own.

I finished school, found friends and sometimes a boyfriend. I had no fix place, often travelling round London and the area to go to gigs, just to earn my much wanted fame and music, but I never broke through.

And then one day in spring of the year 2019, I fell through time. I had been staying with friends, when I made my way through the countryside just outside London.

I had my guitar on my back, my things with me and then must have slipped. I remember loosing my balance, my hands flapping out to catch my balance and then I fell, the ground coming towards me.

And it was not a hard fall, just one enough to scrape your knees, but I never felt any impact on my knees and hands.

Was it the strange air that day? How the moon was in the same eerie looking sky as the sun? The way the wind moved and made the grass and the nature seem to glow? The way the clouds chased hurriedly along the sky, as if they didn't want to witness what was happening?

I still don't quite know. All I remember is falling and not hitting the rocky path beneath me, but seemingly continuing to fall, as if I was in a tunnel and everything was roaring around me, and there were spirals of air and colours but nothing vast. And I turned and turned until I closed my eyes for the strange sound of wind seemingly howling and the world and everything roaring and curling and turning until finally I fell unconscious.

When I woke, i was disoriented, lying face down onto muddy ground, the roar of machines and city life around me. I blinked, trying to get my bearings and then I realised I was in a lane with houses.

Of course I believed it was a dream at first, how could i not? But even I had to eventually admit it was my new reality.

It did not take me long to figure out what had happened. I had heard legends of things like this being possible. Stories and fairy tales of this happening.

I just didn't think it would ever happen to me.

Stunning, anger, bitterness, incredulousness, all filled me until eventually I realized I had to accept my fate. The food I had packed had lasted me but for a few days and people stayed clear of me due to my strange clothing. But then chance smiled down upon me, in this strange strange world.

My name is Ellison, and I am a 25 year old pub singer in 1920s Birmingham.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I don't own Peaky Blinders, Red dress by Sugababes or One thing by Amerie.**

My beginnings in Birmingham weren't easy. I had taken to singing to try and earn my bread but due to my strange clothes, everyone stayed clear.

I had not washed or eaten in days, and despair gripped on me. My nose ran and my body ached, and I knew I was developing a cold.

One evening, after another day of barely scraps, a man stopped to listen to me. -" You have a good voice, girl.' He drawled. I looked up and perhaps it was the despair in my eyes but the man stepped closer.

-"You seem...lost." He tried. I snorted. -"Lost? I'm homeless, hungry and alone. I'm more than lost, I'm _dying_. I wont survive much longer."

He hummed and then threw a bill. -"Sing for me." So I searched and sang a childhood song. It was the only song my voice and body still had energy for.

He hummed again. -"I'm looking for a singer for my pub. Our previous one left. Would you be interested? You'll earn money and get lodging and food until you can afford a place yourself." He seemed kind enough and really I had nowhere to go, so I accepted.

In hindsight, accepting something from a complete stranger was not the best idea. I was however at the end of my rope so I had not much of a choice. I would not get another opportunity. Luckily the stranger had no ulterior motives and indeed brought me to a small worn down pub called " Three horses came down the road". Something with when the pub had just been build they used to bring the supplies on a cart drawn by two horses, and a third one followed on horseback. It was a catchy name, so they kept it. It was an old pub but homely. I immediately liked it.

After a hearty meal that I gobbled up under the watchful eye of the friendly elderly man, whose name was Mr. Harrison, I was allowed to take a bath. His eyes crinkled when he gently told me I reeked of the street. He was right. I cringed when I smelled my clothes and skin and so I went up and bathed. I scrubbed my body and washed my hair, and than I felt better.

I put my clothes and jewellery aside, hiding the bracelet I wore on my arm. It said my name and the year 2014, since that was the first time I performed alone in front of a large crowd. It was then I knew I wanted to be a singer for life.

I felt somewhat safer having hidden it and then turned to go downstairs. Yet, it was not the end of my struggle. As the days past, the cold I had developed started to become stronger, until it wasn't a cold any more.

It turned out to become a quite heavy flu and so I was confined to bed.

Mister Harrison, had a young woman who was also musician look after me. She could sing quite well, but preferred the instruments. She was of Spanish descent, with brown warm skin and long curly brown hair pulled up into a loose braid. She had the most kind green eyes I had seen and her name was Raquel. At first she was wary but as she looked after me and I got better we talked and eventually hit it off. When i told her that I was a singer, we told the owner we'd like to perform together.

When I was better, we trained for weeks, growing closer. She sometimes said on a small stool in front of the mirror while I was in bath, relaxing while my hair dried. She told me of herself and Birmingham, where she had lived for the past 3 years. I told her about myself, eluding the fact I came from the future.

Our first performance was a success and as the weeks passed on, the pub started to draw more and more people.

After a quite successful evening, as Raquel undid my hair ( I was still not familiar with the styling of the era), she suddenly stopped. She hummed and the put her hands on my shoulders. -" What is it?" I asked as she turned to sit in front of me.

-" Ellie, you know you can tell me anything right?" I nodded. She frowned and then grabbed something on my nightstand. -" Then why does it say the date 2014 on your bracelet?" My mind blanched and fear curled in my gut. I had completely forgotten to put it back in it's drawer this morning! And of course Raquel would have seen it when I asked her to fetch me my brush.

I swore, trying to come up with a lie. - "Uhm..I.."

-" You told me you were a singer from London..But I have family there and no one has ever heard of a singer named Ellison. I've travelled as well, I would have heard of you."I still was trying to find a lie when my shoulders slumped. Raquel squeezed my shoulder again. - "I know you. I saw your clothes you were wearing when Harrison brought you in. And this bracelet. It says 2014 and it is made of iron. Made in a way that our engravers don't do. The year 2014, That is almost 100 years from now. No one with your name is known in London or here. I've travelled, i would have heard of you if you performed in a pub in London as you claim. Also the songs you sing, the language, it's too..too advanced, too different from now, from here, from this time."

Could I tell her? I sighed, scrunching my hands into my dress. - "You won't believe me if I tell you." I mumbled. - "You'll think I'm crazy."

Raquel patted my hand. -" I want the truth, please." I doubted but then thought about it. Of course she would notice. I still wasn't used to wearing these clothes, the shoes, the way my hair was done; I just didn't. I remember the first time I had to put on these clothes, how the maid and Raquel had looked at each other when I struggled with every single piece I had to put on. My hair that I didn't understand how to fold to the styles that were in, my stumbling in the shoes, the stockings I wanted to forego.

The microphone that I didn't get to turn on. -" Promise you will tell no one, Raquel. It will be dangerous for you and for me." I pleaded.

She nodded, coming closer. And so, with a quivering voice I told her. Tears were falling by the end of my story and she held my hands as I sniffed. Then she hugged me and whispered softly that everything would be all right.

And the best? I knew she believed every single word I told her. I held her close. After a while she looked up to me. - "There is one good thing though.. An unlimited stock of songs to sing! With your voice and my help as musician and extra singer we will come the best in Brighton."

I laughed. Trust Raquel to make the best of a situation. I felt stronger, better. This was a strange strange world, but I wasn't alone.

As the weeks passed, we performed, and our pub started to gain fame.

We should have known success this size wouldn't go unnoticed. Mr Harrisons son? Henry, had taken over management during a business trip Mr. Harrison was on. Not only was he arrogant, he was mean, and treated us like dirt. We were the cashcows he got his money from and that was all. He was not friendly, like his father.

All that interested him was the money and how much we made. The more we earned, the more arrogant he became, and the more the mutual dislike between us grew. Had he blabbed about us? Had he bragged? I still don't know, what I do know is that, a bustling Wednesday evening, while the band played, the lights were low and people danced, and the lights flashed, suddenly screams resounded everywhere.

The music stopped, the dancers stumbled aside to reveal three, no four men swaggering up to us. The leader, I presumed, had the most shocking blue eyes I had ever seen. A tall swanky man with a moustache commented on the music and beside him, swaggered another young man with a grin on his face, taking in everything around him. Though the one at the front had shocking eyes, it wasn't him who drew me in. It was the grinning man. He had blue eyes as well, brown hair and some freckles on his face. Their was something in his eyes, his manner of being, a relaxedness that drew me in.

He was, like the others, handsome too. They all had their hair cut in such a way that they wore their hair long on top, in different shades of brown, the side and behind shaved in an undercut. On their heads they wore a cap with something silver shining on the front. A razor, I realized and my gut clenched. Still my eyes remained on the young man with the grin on his face.

Someone whispered the word Peaky blinders in the silent pub. Fear built steadily in my stomach. I didn't know much about them but I knew they were a gang. Trouble came wherever they went. I had even heard they set a pub on fire that they didn't like the management of.

If that was the case, then we were doomed.

\- "Gentlemen!" Henry walked up to them, his voice sugar sweet. The leader only regarded him with a blank face, lighted a cigarette and stared him down. -"So this is the pub, aye? With the best singers in Birmingham?" He pulled on the cig and then exhaled. Henry's mouth opened and closed.

The fourth man, who had slightly darker hair, pulled out a poster. - "So it say on this, Tommy." Henry opened his mouth to say something when in the blink of an eye he had Henry by the front of his costume. -"You thought to make money on our turf without us involved, eh? Making big money without us? I closed an eye for your old man Harrison, but you, I don't like ya. Perhaps I should burn the building down as a lesson."

Harrison squeaked. He literally squeaked. -" I..We make good money, i swear! Let me show you! We have real talented people here! Just..let me show.." The older lanky one sniffed. " Well, I'd enjoy a show. Oi, Tommy, give this fucker a chance. We need a moment to relax. We can unwind and drink and afterwards still burn the place down if it's shit."

-"Yes, yes!" Henry struggled. Tommy sighed and then let him go.

Henry, sweating profusely, turned to me. I had observed everything behind the little stage in the middle of the pub.-" Ellison! Ellison!" I startled, wincing. -"Music, sing!"

-"Uhm..But what?" -" I don't care." he spat. -"Anything. You made a new song no? Called "red dress"? Perform that?"

I swallowed. -"But me and Raquel have only performed it once, and not before public. Also, isn't it a bit...too much?" The fourth man who said down next to the other three. He took a swallow of his drink and looked me in the eye. -" I'm in the mood for something sexy. Surprise us."

I opened my mouth and then closed it. -" Ellison, is it?" The man, Tommy asked. I nodded, nose flaring. -" Sing."

It was not a question, but a command. The two others were also turned to me, watching me. -" Fine." I sighed and then turned. -"Let me change, and I'll perform with Raquel."

I changed into a red drop down dress with a second red beaded layering over it. Then I darkened up my eyes and put on lipstick. A small silver band I attached in my finger waved hair. Raquel stood watching as she also started changing. Her dress was like mine but with tassels at the end and she wore a long pearl necklace around her neck. Her hair was like mine, finger waved and braided short to her head.

-"Peaky blinders?! Here? We're supposed to stay clear of them." I stopped. Not only was I performing for a bunch of people that scared me, I was performing for mobsters..who would possible kill me if I didn't do my best.

-"Ellie?" Raquel asked, frowning. -"If we don't perform well, they threaten to burn the place down. I'm scared." I said, anxiety pooling in my gut. For a moment panic crossed over Raquel's face and then her brows set. She took my hands and squeezed them.

-"Have faith in yourself and in me Ellie, we'll do good." I nodded, swallowing before walking onto the stage at the front of the pub, lights turned down.

The drum started up behind me while the spots flickered on, focused on two red dressed girls dancing on tables.

_**( Listen to Red Dress by Sugababes)**_

_**-"Cause I'm cooler then the red dress. I'm cooler, yeah, I'm cooler."**_ The first notes drifted from my lips and the nerves were gone.

When I started the first verse, finally the spots turned to me. **_-" A girl's entitled to flaunt, to get what she wants, can't say that's its wrong, no baby."_** I crooned into the microphone while looking over at the tables. Several of the couples had stopped to watch, and the four men said in the front, regarding me.

The one I had noticed, the one who had swaggered in, had his hands on his knees, still a grin on his face as he stared at me. I continued singing but his stare made me feel..different..alive_** -" And when you're sure, you'll never let her play you again."**_ I smiled as the lyrics flowed. As the chorus came, Raquel started singing as well, strutting seductively as she wrapped her hand around her own microphone e and we both sang while smiling at each other. _**-" Cause I'm cooler than the red dress. Rather catch a guy on my own. Cause what you see the man gets, and if he don't he better of alone."**_ I leaned forward preparing my voice for the following notes. _**" Ohohohohoh." **_

Then Raquel jumped in. _**-"Don't need candlelight to make you stay over, I'm giving it up now, baby."**_ Her voice was sassy as she formed the syllables, eyes zeroing in onto the men in front of us.

Then her voice softened as she held up her hand and turned her eyes down, her lashes nearly to the bottom

_**-" I've played the desperate lady.."**_ I danced along as she sang and then fell in when my part came back.

_**\- "Cause I've been down this road before"**_ I held my hand out as I sweetly sang, my voice rising. _**-"I should have known that I was to blame."**_ I shrugged my shoulders.

The song continued on, Raquel grinning as we sang with two. At the end of the song, we both seductively walked foreword, dragging the microphone along. _**-"So don't call me baby."**_ I drawled, my finger forming a no-no sign. _**-"Cooler than the red dress.."**_

-_**"So don't call me baby"**_ I repeated as we walked closer. _**"Cooler then the red dress."**_ Raquel supplied. Our voice faded as finally the song stopped.

For a moment there was silence before a thundering round of applause came from the gathered crowd. -"Oi, that's what I'm talking about!"the lanky man shouted, drink in hand. Then he whistled.

Raquel laughed as my shoulders sagged and she hugged me. -"Ellison, ay? Strange name." The lanky man drawled. I frowned. -" Well it's better than Arthur or John or Tom or George." I sniped, slapping a hand over my mouth, mortified. Then the man with the freckles, my mobster, started chuckling.

-"Got ya there, Arthur." The lanky man grinned. - " Shit I didn't know you're actual name was Arthur!" I blabbed. The other man still chuckled.

Then Arthur suddenly jumped on stage and I stepped back, grabbing Raquel's hand. -"Well." He drawled. "This pub is now ours..By order of the fookin peaky blinders." His brothers hooted. Then the music started playing and the dancing started up again. I slinked away, to the bar and blew out my breath, my head in my hands.

-"You the singer, yeah?" A voice drawled behind me. A quick glance told me it was the striking man, John. I had heard his name while he talked with his brothers. He grinned and then took a sip of his glass as he watched me with unabashed interest. I quickly straightened, putting a little distance between us.

-"Ellison!" I turned to see Henry shooting glares at me across the room. I knew what he was thinking. Keep your mouth shut and make sure they don't get angry. I gritted my teeth to not give him a piece of my mind but the man, John, looked at him, his face transforming into something akin to disgust.

-"Never liked that little fucker." He mumbled under his breath. -"Well." I said. -" That makes two." The bartender, Martin, shoved a glass of water towards me. John grinned at me. -"Not drinking, are ya?" I raised a brow but kept silence. The awkward silence continued but I quickly realized he really was trying to keep conversation going.

-"You scared of me and my brothers?" He asked, a little less sure. -"A little frightened." I replied, swirling my glass.

-"It's not good for my voice." I nearly whispered. -"Huh?" The peaky blinder mumbled. -' Alcohol. If i drink too much when I still have to perform..the taste and the bitterness, it makes me a little queasy and then I can't sing my first notes well. It's my main moneymaker, you know"

-"Ah." He said "Well maybe next time I'll buy ya a whiskey then. We have some real good back at the garrison." I smiled carefully. -"But for now..Cheers to ya, miss Ellison. It was a bloody good show." He raised his glass and then drank, his eyes still on me. I raised my glass with water timidly and gulped it down.

That night I sat in front of my window, letting the breeze caress my skin. And while I hummed and looked down, a man with a peaky cap swaggered on below in the street. When he noticed me at my window he touched his cap and nodded and went on his way.

I closed my window and crept into bed, dreaming off peaky caps and razors, whiskey and songs and most off all, an insufferable grin and blue eyes.

What is their to say over the course of the next months? Owned by the peaky blinders, meant having them over quite often. I was even invited to sing at the wedding of the leader, Tommy Shelby and his wife Grace.

I performed an upbeat version of "One thing" by Amerie while dancing on stage. John, surrounded by a gaggle of children, kept his eyes on me all evening, even when his children interrupted the first dance of Tommy and grace and hopped around to a second song I sang. I had to swallow my laugh.

I was a little taken aback by the three kids but at the end of the night they even endeared me with their antics. The girl Katie immediately seemed to like me and the boys, though a little wary at first, still ran around me, requesting music again and again.

After my wedding performance, the peaky blinders visited the pub regularly. But what really struck me was that John came by most often. Sometimes with friends or sometimes alone.

The fourth man, Michael Gray, came by sometimes but only for one thing, or rather someone. He was always focused on Raquel.

He always sought me out and we got to know each other better. I was careful at first, but he really was a good chap and I really liked learning about him.

He told me about his first wife Martha and his children, his family, sometimes he vented his frustration on his brothers and his business without going in detail or not often about the war.

But he wasn't talking only about himself. Her was genuinely interested in me, in my interests and hopes and dreams, my songs and singing, my friendship with Raquel, my life and feelings.

He, unlike other men I met before, especially here, listened to me. He really listened and he asked questions. Before I knew it I was falling head over heels in love with him.

And then one day when he as at the bar drinking, he waved me over. -"You done performing? " He asked. I nodded. -"Good." He was silent for a while and then turned to me.

-"Ellison..' - "Yes?" I blinked. -"I think it's time I take ye out for that whiskey at the garrison." I blinked again and then nodded. -"Uhm..sure, that'd be...that'd be fun.' He grinned as if I had just told him it was his birthday. Then he drank up his drink, threw some money on the counter, tipped his cap, and left with excited spring in his step.

And then I realized, after he had left..He had asked me out. I was having a date with a notorious gangster from Brighton.

If only my mother could see me now. I could not help but snicker at that thought while looking over at Raquel.

A smile crossed her lips as she made kissing noises.-"Oh you.." I grunted. But I couldn't help but smile the entire evening, even when I crept into my bed.


End file.
